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Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk’s concept of sound of what you can do merely with your voice without using words is truly amazing as it attracts attention in a way that makes you search for deeper connections between sound and voice and what they aim at representing. Her voice is an instrument itself and she actively uses different pitches in order to perform.

“The Songs of Ascension” seems to be a piece referring to the eternal cycle of life and rebirth just by the sound of it. The visual effect of the whole piece of course plays an important role in this perception. There’s struggle and victory in every step she makes on the way up, there’s an impartial eye of the universe in the water downstairs, there’s light of hope upstairs, there’s prayer and unity which altogether reminds me of Pauline Oliveros’s ideas of common sisterhood. At times it sounds almost discordant which surprisingly creates this idea of new sound which you can create solely with your voice. Another interesting detail about “The Songs of Ascension” is that Meredith Monk does not have a lot of people singing for the piece, however the feeling you get while listening to it and especially without paying attention to the performance itself makes you wonder how just a few people can create such sound of hundreds of voices singing together. It seems to be the careful work of each musician, a complex variation of each voice that the whole piece consists of.

Other Monk’s pieces are not actually songs in the traditional understanding of what a song is, the words are not pronounced at all or not pronounced clearly enough to be comprehensible. Maybe the point is to get back to the roots of the singing itself, to its nature. The role and core of singing in the ancient tradition, among the first attempts to express oneself through words connected with a certain pattern or melody along with making it suitable for the practical needs of people is what Meredith Monk refers to in her art. A song is human life and nature and it’s vital for so many areas of everyday existence like religion, art, history, culture, science and many others. Sound of singing facilitates the connection of minds being the universal language for all.
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